47 pages • 1 hour read
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: Rice-and-Salt Days
Chapter 14 Summary: Into the Mountains
When the typhoid epidemic subsides, Snow Flower writes to Lily, inviting her to visit. Without her mother-in-law to forbid the visit, Lily does what she can to appease her husband’s objections and then sets out to visit Snow Flower. Lily sees for the first time how difficult Snow Flower’s circumstances must be—the smell of meat carcasses, unvaried meals of pork meat, and the family of pigs that sniff around the tables for scraps at mealtime. Snow Flower has become a vegetarian in defiance of her husband’s livelihood. Lily and Snow Flower agree that, just as they did, their daughters should wait until the age of seven to begin the foot-binding process.
Snow Flower’s husband refuses to let Lily and Snow Flower sleep together in the master bedroom, as is the custom for lautongs. While Lily is in bed in the ladies’ chamber, she hears Snow Flower and her husband having sex in their room, and feels that they are engaging in polluted acts. Lily observes that Snow Flower is beginning to look worn and old, her skin is darkening and her hair is turning grey.
On Lily’s second night with Snow Flower the government declares war on the Taiping rebels and the entire village flees the approaching battle. The family goes together, carrying as much food and water as they can, the women riding in the palanquin. As their walk into the hills becomes more difficult, they must reduce their loads and the women are forced to walk, despite the limitations of their lily-shaped feet. During the trek, they witness women losing their balance and falling over the cliff to their deaths. Young girls with feet just in the early stages of binding, and therefore unable to walk, are abandoned along the way like so many other possessions.
When Snow Flower’s husband leaves one night to look for firewood, he leaves the women with neighbors by a fire. That night, the women keep each other company by telling traditional stories. A woman tells the familiar story of the origins of their tribe, the Yao, how they first came to form and how they were scattered into various groups in order to survive; her story ends with the prediction that after 500 years, the Yao will be reunited again. Lily wonders if this group of women will survive the night, or whether they will be slaughtered by rebels or taken for rebels by the government fighters.
Chapter 15 Summary: Winter
Snow Flower’s husband, because of the various survival skills he has developed as a result of “being in an unclean profession” (199), gains respect among their small group of displaced villagers. Lily begins to see how Snow Flower’s elder son, sickly and weak, is neglected by his family. She exerts her authority as Lady Lu to get more food, which she then passes on to Snow Flower and her eldest son. Because Snow Flower’s husband hopes to receive a reward from the Lu family for taking care of Lily, he concedes to her requests.
Lily begins to teach the eldest son things she has overheard Uncle Lu teach her own son. She tells him the story of an elder son who has no place within his family, “the younger brother will follow his father’s trade . . . Mama’s and Baba’s eyes never rest upon their eldest son” (201). In the story, the elder son leaves his family and becomes a beggar, but eventually improves his own circumstances until his family doesn’t recognize him. When he reveals his identity, they flatter him and then ask for favors. The son turns away from them and goes on to have a happy and prosperous life. Snow Flower’s mother-in-law criticizes Lily, saying “You’re telling the story wrong” (201), and accuses her of giving the boy false hope. Lily does not respond, but silently hopes that by telling such a story, she might be able to improve the future of Snow Flower’s son in some way, as Snow Flower had done for her when they were girls.
During their time living in the mountains, Snow Flower becomes pregnant again. When Snow Flower’s second son dies in the night for no apparent reason, her husband’s grief is so strong that he spends two days bereft before taking the child and running away into the woods to bury him alone. When he returns, he beats Snow Flower so brutally that she miscarries. In the following days and weeks, while she continues to suffer the physical effects of her miscarriage, her husband continues to beat her.
Snow Flower reveals that her husband has been beating her all through their marriage. She also confesses that she has wanted to commit suicide for a long time, “but someone is always around” (209). Then, she says that her enjoyment of sex has been her only relief from her unhappiness, because she could use it to convince him to give her things she wants. When Lily expresses her disapproval, Snow Flower says to her, “you have everything, and yet you have nothing” (210). Lily objects to her sentiments, by using the well-known phrases that they have been taught about a woman’s role in life, and Snow Flower tells her those words have no meaning for her.
The villagers receive word that it is safe to return to their homes after three months in the mountains. By the time they make it back, many more have died of hunger and exposure along the way. When they reach Snow Flower’s home, they receive word that Lily’s husband is on his way to her. She and her husband, who is also suffering the trauma of the past few months, have an emotional reunion. He pays a reward to the butcher for taking care of Lily, and then takes Lily home with him.
Chapter 14 – Chapter 15 Analysis
During their time in the mountains, the butcher establishes a reputation for himself when he goes to look for firewood. Lily observes that “Snow Flower’s husband became a hero to our small band of people” (199). This moment mirrors the event earlier in the novel where Lily’s husband goes to look for salt. We see that, within this culture, those men who are willing to take risks and venture out in order to provide for the community are the ones who achieve high status and are given respect. The wives of these men, then, are often women who must endure domestic hardship while their husbands are away from the home.
Oral storytelling becomes a significant feature in these chapters. Lily observes a distinction between the more refined activity of nu shu, which only high ranking women learn, and the more common art of oral storytelling and singing. It is a means by which the women entertain one another and educate each other about the history of their people. Furthermore, Lily sees storytelling as a means of manipulating their circumstances. Just as Madame Wang once told a story about a butcher’s wife to give hope to Snow Flower, Lily tells the story of the neglected eldest son, hoping to bring hope to Snow Flower’s son. In her improvisation, she has the hero go to the province of Guilin, which is the place where her husband travelled to acquire salt for the village. Lily is in effect placing Snow Flower’s neglected elder son in the role of her own husband, Master Lu, who took the matter of his prosperity into his own hands when he went to Guilin, where he established his own status.
In previous chapters, we have seen instances in which women exceed their assigned gender roles. In the case of Snow Flower’s eldest son, there is a reversal in gender subversion. Lily describes him as being “gentle and delicate” (203), ascribing to him those qualities that she appreciated in her own lautong. Lily and Snow Flower pool what knowledge they can from their own experiences, effectively passing on women’s knowledge to him, in their attempt to “make him an educated man” (205).
Unlock all 47 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Lisa See
